Ubud Wanderings: Rice Harvest (Bali, Indonesia)

(image source: Canadian Paralympic Committee)

Ottawa, ON (October 22, 2010) – Today, the Canadian Paralympic Committee and several decorated Paralympians gratefully accepted the financial contribution of $5M annually over the next five years from the Minister of State for Sport, the Honourable Gary Lunn. The funding was announced during the 2010 Canadian Paralympic Congress in Ottawa, attended by leaders in sport and disability organizations from across the country. This announcement follows the financial commitment announced by Minister Flaherty in the Federal Budget on March 4^th.

This new funding has triggered the most ambitious plan in the history of the Canadian Paralympic Committee.

“Our vision is to be the world-leading Paralympic Nation. This means more than gold medals. It means having success on the world stage, as well as having a sustainable Paralympic sport system that encourages participation; provides access to the best equipment, coaches and leadership; and, celebrates the accomplishment of our nations’ Paralympians,” said Carla Qualtrough, President for the Canadian Paralympic Committee . “This is a significant day as it marks the beginning of a very bright future for us. It will empower us to enhance the podium performance of the Canadian Paralympic Team as well as to work closely with our partners to raise the awareness of the opportunities available in sport for Canadians with a disability.”

“Our Government is proud to support our Canadian Paralympic athletes. We have all been inspired by their recent successes, notably at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games and the XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi. This additional investment will ensure that the CPC has the tools that it needs to continue to build on these triumphs, and to encourage more persons with disabilities to actively participate in sport.”

This funding represents a new era for the Canadian Paralympic Committee and leads the organization to a new and brighter future. With significant, stable funding, more children with disabilities will have the opportunity to participate in sport and pursue dreams of representing their country in international high performance competition. The result will be a positive impact on the health and well-being of Canadians, especially those with a disability.

The new Strategic Plan will focus on four pillars: (1) enhancing podium performances at Paralympic Games; (2) building a World-class Paralympic Sport System; (3) creating a sustainable business model for the Canadian Paralympic Committee; and, (4) expanding the awareness of Paralympic sport and building the Paralympic Brand.

“The Federal Government’s commitment represents a new era for the Paralympic Movement in Canada,” said Chantal Petitclerc, five-time Paralympic wheelchair racer and winner of 21 Paralympic medals. “It is very encouraging to see that up and coming athletes will have this type of support from their Government and I am thrilled to see Paralympic sport receive this kind of recognition.

This increase in funding demonstrates that encouraging healthy lifestyles for the 3.6 million Canadians living with disabilities through promotion of sport and recreation remains a priority for this government. It also reflects the growing pride and support of Canadians for the Canadian Paralympic Team. The Canadian Paralympic Committee and its athletes applaud the Federal Government for their support and their vital role in being a strong advocate of the Paralympic Movement.

(source: Canadian Paralympic Committee Press Release)

Next week the International Marketing Conference will be in Vancouver from September 21-23. I have been offered a ticket to the 3 day event in exchange for photographing and blogging about it.

The 10th anniversary of the conference will feature Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, Guy Kawasaki as the keynote speaker, basing his presentation on his new book: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I’ve heard that he is an amazing speaker, so I’m looking forward to his talk as well as other topics that will be covered in the three day conference.

Other locations of the conference are Helsinki, New York, Santiago, Barcelona, San Francisco, Stockholm, Montreal, Calgary, and Copenhagen.

For my dad’s birthday this year, rather than have a big party, my dad wanted to spend some quality time with the family. With this request in mind, my mom drove down the beautiful Cowichan Bay, on Vancouver Island and booked a whale watching tour with Ocean Ecoventures.

We arrived at the storefront location, which doubles as an art gallery, and were provided with full-body, wind proof, Helly Hansen flotation suits for the day’s adventure. It was the first really hot day of the summer so the need for the suits didn’t seem to make sense, but once we were out and speeding across the water I was grateful to have it.

Once suited up, we made our way down to the zodiac was moored and were given a quick but detailed safety lesson for the trip by Simon Pidcock, owner/operator of Ocean Ecoventures. Before taking off, he took this group shot!

We barely left the harbour when we caught our first glimpse of ocean wildlife. A harbour seal swam by about twenty feet from the boat!

After about a 45 minute boat ride (with gorgeous B.C. views), we arrived to an area where the orcas tend to hang out and play around. Simon told us of all kinds of interesting facts, behaviours and statistics about the whales. He was very knowledgeable and much of the information was astounding!

Whales were not the only wildlife we saw on the trip. After watching and following the orcas for a couple of hours, we headed back to Cowichan Bay. He took us into a kelp bed, where he showed us that kelp is amazingly strong, and that it has an unbelievable growth rate, as well as many benefits to the ocean and its’ creatures. We even took a kelp leaf out of the water and ate it. Yep, it’s edible!

Other creatures we came across were several bald eagles as well as a bald eagle nest, a couple of ospreys and their nest of young, and of course a lot of seals hanging out on the logs.

All in all we had an AMAZING experience! Unreal photographic opportunities! And we were lucky with phenomenal weather!

If you are planning a trip to Vancouver Island and are looking for a fun adventure in the Cowichan Valley, an Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching tour with Simon Pidcock should definitely be on your itinerary!

A few tips for your trip:

• Bring your best camera and best zoom/telephoto lens for the trip. I was afraid my gear would get wet, so I left it behind, but not a drop of water made it inside the boat! (*kicking myself!*)
• Wear SUNSCREEN! Even on a cloudy day you are susceptible to sunburn.
• Bring sunglasses and a hat to wear while floating around watching the whales.
• Wear closed toed shoes.
• Bring a bottle of water.
• Ask lots of questions, Simon knows his stuff!

For more information about Ocean Ecoventures, visit their website, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. And be sure to check out some of Simon’s beautiful whale photography on Flickr.

Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching is located at:
1721 Cowichan Bay Road, Cowichan Bay
Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Local – 250 748 3800
Toll Free – 1 866 748 5333

Have you taken a whale watching tour? Please share your experience in the comments.

I attended Making Sense of the Oil Slick discussion panel at the BC Marine Museum last night, and found that there is a lot of stuff that a lot of people simply don’t know! (or maybe people just don’t want to know?)

The panel consisted of:

– Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada
– Professor Geoff Mann, Dogwood Initiative / Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University
– Professor Kurt Andrew Grimm, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia
– Robert Scales, Technology and Communication Strategist*

The talk started off with Prof. Kurt Grimm, speaking from a scientific and religious angle, saying that science has gone crazy and this problem is bigger than we are.We need to stop pointing the fingers at other, because the problem here is starting with us, with our addiction to fossil fuels!

Prof. Geoff Mann followed with a political policies discussion and had some very interesting things to say around British Columbia’s current situation and the risks of the potential plan to begin offshore drilling right here at home. He discussed ways to stop, or at least make it more difficult for companies to drill for oil off our coast. He told the group that the current tanker ban off out coast is unenforced and that our laws are generally too relaxed around the subject. The most effective environmental tool British Columbia has, he said, is our First Nations and their ability to stop such things from happening in our province and country. The 28 Nations have banded together to oppose Enbridge’s 1,000-kilometre pipeline stretching from the oil patch north of Edmonton to Kitimaat, B.C.

“We will protect ourselves and the interests of future generations with everything we have because one major oil spill on the coast of British Columbia would wipe us out,” Gerald Amos, director of the Coastal First Nations, said in a statement.

Up next in the discussion was Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada. She continued Geoff Mann’s conversation by talking more about government policies saying that Canada’s oil and gas regulations are a joke. One major example is the bill that was passed just yesterday around environmental issues.

It is probably best described by quoting from Elizabeth’s blog,  “the 2009 Budget Implementation Bill was used to gut the Navigable Water Protection Act (NWPA).  The NWPA had been cornerstone environmental legislation since 1867, but the Conservative government decided that an objective definition of “navigable” could be replaced with “anything the Minister of Transport thinks it is.”

“This year is worse.  The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) is clearly in the Harper governments cross-hairs.   First, the budget text (as reported) included the unprecedented move to take energy projects away from the CEAA and assign environmental assessment for energy projects to the National Energy Board or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.  Now, the details of the 2010 Budget Implementation Bill have been released, and, you guessed it, it gets worse.

“The new amendments were clearly designed to evade the implications of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Red Chris Mine.  The Red Chris mine is a gold and copper mine in BC. In January the SCC found that the Environment Minister had failed in legal obligations under CEAA by describing the details of the project that require review (called “scoping”) in such a way that damaging aspects would be excluded from environmental assessment. The 2010 Budget Implementation Bill means the minister can scope the project any old way he or she chooses.  Big huge mine? Tiny little assessment.

“This is a body blow to environmental assessment.  The new bill also removes the requirement for public consultation on projects subject to Comprehensive Study.   Comprehensive Study only applies to fairly large projects with real potential for environmental damage. This actually runs directly counter to the purposes of the Act.  It also removes projects funded through infrastructure money flowing to municipalities or First Nation.”

Rounding off the panel discussion was Technology and Communication Strategist, Robert Scales talking about art, media and crisis. He spoke of the role social media plays in crises such as the oil spill and other major environmental events. He spoke of Twitter and how it is an effective tool for communicating more than what you had for breakfast and that it is a powerful tool for citizens like you or myself to get global conversations going, in this case about the oil spill, BP, and environmental effects of the damage. The image that held the most impact for me during his talk was this one, showing the relative size of the actual spill in comparison to Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.

[media-credit id=1 align=”aligncenter” width=”500″][/media-credit]

Bear in mind that this was the size of the spill 10 days ago, so it has grown since. You can “try the oil spill on” in different parts of the world by following this link: http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

For more links and to view Robert Scales’ slide presentation, please visit SlideShare.

After all the panelists presented and the crowd took a bit of a break, we all reconvened for an open discussion. The main ideas that were shared were that we, as a people, need to make a shift from a “consumer” role to a “citizen” role.

The way we are generally speaking about our government is from an “us” and “them” perspective. What we are not taking advantage of is the fact that we have a democratic government. With that came the question, “What is a democratic government?” and one answer was “majority rules.” But in fact a democratic government is a government “by the people.” Meaning in essence that, “we are the government!” So if this is the case, why are we, as a people, not exercising this? We are letting “them” make all the decisions, when in fact we DO have a say in what “they” decide!

So what it comes down to is that we are constantly complaining about things within our government, but not enough people are stepping up to do something about it. We all sit in our armchairs or at our computers, reading or watching the news, shaking our heads, but if we do not deem certain things unacceptable, they will never change! So what do we need to do? Well, we need to REDEFINE the acceptable!

And with that, the discussion was wrapped up, but it definitely inspired more thinking about these ideas for, I think, most of the people in the room. I know it did for me!

*Robert Scales stood in for Kris Krug of Static Photography, who was unable to present at the event due to an invitation to head to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico to photograph the environmental effects of the BP oil spill. More information about Kris’s expedition can be found at http://tedxoilspill.com/expedition/.

**Photography exhibit on the walls of the venue was “Studies In Sea Ice” by Roberta Holden of No Barriers Photography, and will be available for viewing until October 3, 2010.

***More photos from the event are available on Flickr.

On March 12th, the 2010 Paralympic Opening Ceremonies took place at BC Place in Vancouver, BC. This was an absolutely amazing and inspiring event and I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to experience it from several photographer positions in the stadium, due to my official VANOC media accreditation.

It was an amazing sight to walk into the stadium and see the stadium filled with people wearing the colored ponchos assigned to their seats. Blue, green and white flooded the stands in the shape of the Paralympic logo. Awesome!

The Opening Ceremony was an amazing show with some incredible talent from the disabled community. The Ceremonies started with the introduction of the esteemed guests, including Prime Minister Harper, Premier Gordon Campbell, VANOC CEO John Furlong, and Paralympics President Philip Craven, among members of the four host nations and others.

From there, they dove right into the performances and introduction of the Paralympic athletes. Canada is featured here:

And from there, the talent and performances spoke for themselves:

The inspiring speakers of the event: VANOC CEO, John Furlong, IPC President, Philip Craven and Rick Hansen of the Rick Hansen Foundation and the Man in Motion World Tour.

And, of course, the lighting of the Paralympic Cauldron. The torch was brought in by the parents of Terry Fox, Betty and Rolly Fox, A truly emotional and inspiring moment to experience in person. It was passed off to other torch bearers before the final  15 year old torch bearer Zach Beaumont, lit the cauldron.

With the theme of One Inspires Many, the Paralympic Opening Ceremony was definitely inspiring. Good luck to all the athletes competing in the Games! It will be an amazing 10 days!

For more images of the Opening Ceremonies, please visit the set on Flickr!

Here it is! I was approved to receive VANOC media accreditation for the 2010 Paralympic Games! I am very excited to have this opportunity to photograph the amazing athletes participating in the Paralympics and cheer them on in their respective sports! Go Canada GO!!!

I’m aiming to go to and photograph at least one Paralympics event each day of the Games, so check back here and my Flickr account often!